


The Next Adventure

by tigriswolf



Series: autobiography [38]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21607264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: to die will be an awfully big adventure
Series: autobiography [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/664319
Kudos: 8





	The Next Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> for my cousin. Written November 18 - 21, 2019 - begun the day before he died, finished two days after. 
> 
> it was. bad. we actually found out there was no hope a few hours after i passed my proposal defense. he died exactly 7 days later. he fought a long and hard battle against cancer; he lost at 34 years old. 
> 
> i wrote this poem. i hugged his older sister, his father, his stepmother, his mother. i hugged my sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, my parents. i can't imagine how his older sister feels - she's a sister without a sibling, now. she pointed out, the day before he died (the day i began this poem), that she has relatives on her mother's side who are survivors of cancer and no one on her father's. i hadn't realized until then: there are no cancer survivors in my family. 
> 
> my cousin was... an awesome guy. the coolest guy in our family. the first in my generation to die. the day i was born, at the hospital, my cousin asked his dad where my clothes were. he was two years old.

I read these words and think of you—  
_to die will be an awfully big adventure,_  
said the boy who refused to grow up,  
who kept himself a boy always.  
  
As I write, I’ve yet to cry.  
  
There have been so many tears  
in the past few years—the  
hits keep coming, one after another,  
just when we pause to rest.  
Hope, I’ve learned, can be the  
cruelest thing of all. For a  
little while, everything was good: moments  
to catch our breath as a  
family. Moments of relief, to rejoice.  
  
I can only imagine  
How hard your fight has been  
How exhausted you feel  
How devastated you are to go.  
  
As I write, the tears come.  
  
The only comfort I have is this:  
Yours has been a full, exciting life.  
You’ve lived an adventure,  
brightened so many lives.  
  
I’m crying as I search for words.  
  
I’ll miss you.  
I’ve never known a time without you,  
my brilliant and thrilling cousin.  
  
_to die_ , says the eternal youth,  
_will be an awfully big adventure._  
  
You’ve lived an adventure all your life.  
We’ll miss you so much as you go on to your next.


End file.
